This
essay surveys the many, contradictory links between private ownership
and human flourishing and assesses the moral implications of this
complexity. It begins with and ultimately broadens claims made by
leading South African scholars on the need to reconsider longstanding
ways of thinking about property, particularly the “rights paradigm.”
Private ownership in obvious ways benefits an owner. But as explained,
the links between private rights and human flourishing are far greater,
implicating not just owners but neighbors, surrounding communities, the
landless, future generations, and other life forms. The recognition of
private property rights can both expand and curtail human flourishing.
As for human flourishing, it is equally complex in that it is affected
by many factors going far beyond physical needs. Property rights are
created by law and involve the use of state power to protect rights by
curtailing the liberties of non-owners and others. The only sound moral
justification of this use of coercive power — this use of state power
to help owners control and dominate others — rests in the ways a
well-designed property regime can foster the welfare of nearly everyone,
owners and non-owners alike. Law thus should not vest an owner with any
power that does not, on balance, promote widespread human flourishing.
Inherited ways of thinking about private property cloud these realities
and distort inquiries into property’s origins and moral and practical
consequences. Much of this thought is best wiped away with discussion
begun from a new place, from an express recognition of private property
as an evolving, socially created, morally complex institution that can
both promote and undercut human flourishing, an institution that must be
carefully calibrated to maintain its moral legitimacy and maximize its
social benefits.